Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Air Force completed a test flight of the unarmed, developmental Mk21A reentry vehicle, designed for a future intercontinental ballistic missile system. It launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California and flew over the Pacific Ocean.
The Mk21A is the Air Force’s next-generation integrated reentry vehicle and will serve as the front-end payload for the future ICBM system. It upgrades the legacy Mk21 and is intended to modernize the land-based component of the strategic nuclear triad.
The test was carried out under a prime military contract valued at more than $1 billion. Lockheed Martin said it demonstrated the maturity of the vehicle’s architecture and validated next-generation reentry technologies.
